City of Moultrie estimates 2-3 more weeks of cleanup from Hurricane Michael
Published 3:00 pm Monday, November 12, 2018
- A city work crew removes a pile of storm debris from a residence on Fourth Avenue Northeast Saturday. City officials expect to have all the debris from Hurricane Michael removed in another two or three weeks .
MOULTRIE, Ga. — This weekend marks one month since Hurricane Michael hit the Moultrie area. While power was restored in just a few days, the clean-up of debris is a little over half-done by city estimates.
Moultrie utility workers managed to restore power to the city within 96 hours after the storm hit, but City Manager Pete Dillard expects the clean-up to take another two to three weeks, and that’s with increased help.
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“We had 31 public works employees to volunteer to work during the weekends, and we have street sweepers going around the city seven days a week,” Dillard said. “The amount of debris is something we haven’t seen in Moultrie.”
The city usually picks up about 80,000 pounds of trash per week, but storm debris raised that to 1.5 million pounds per week, the city said.
This experience is preparing the city for the next time something like this does happen, Dillard said.
“We were able to get back operating quick,” he said, “but there is always room for improvement. For the future we have to be aggressive and take down those dying trees because those are the ones that are giving us the most problems.”
The amount of debris in the city is about the same for each area, he said. He asks residents to be patient as crews work their way through the city.
“We are working six to seven days a week to get everything right,” he said. “We want everyone to be patient and let us take care of it.”
